Trying to Tackle Blight in Hartford

Mayor Pedro Segarra stands with city staff in front of a recently revamped home.

Credit Jeff Cohen / WNPR

In old cities with old housing, blight is a constant concern. Now, Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra is boosting a program to give residents money to fix up their homes.

It's a generous program. If you own and live in a property in Hartford, and that property has no more than three units, you may be eligible for as much as a $30,000, zero interest loan to repair the outside of your house. If you stay for five years, you don't pay anything back.

It's also a modest program. The city has set aside just $300,000 so far. A lot of that money comes from a program where the city charges property owners after doing things like boarding up their buildings for them. Segarra announced the program standing outside a city home that has newly revamped porches. He said all work in the program will be done by Hartford contractors.

"We're trying to be fair by having properties done in all different sectors of the city," he said. "We're trying to help especially the elderly and folks that are having some economic challenges. And we hope that we can continue to grow this program."

The blight fund is overseen by a department that was in the news over a year ago for financial missteps. The city said that department is now completely restructured.

It's been more than a half century since the state built two big public housing developments in Hartford -- nestled in neighborhoods that now include middle-class housing, the University of Hartford, and expensive single family homes. The housing developments are called Westbrook Village and Bowles Park. Over time, the units have grown too old and expensive to repair.

June is Homeownership Month and part of peak real estate season. The housing market across the nation is finally showing signs of improvement with signs up across the nation. But it is not the market it was before the 2008 crash.

Some real estate experts say the market hit bottom at 2011 and has been slowly climbing back. This means jobs in construction and other parts of the housing sector.

Still, some 40,000 people are delinquent on their mortgages across the state. And others simply cannot afford any of the options.